


Unbroken

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adultery, Commitment, F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 11:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6237394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things are just meant to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbroken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts).



> Written for the lovely sandrine and originally posted to Livejournal in 2009. Set a long time after Deathly Hallows when Rose is all grown up.

She’s sitting in the far corner of the Muggle café when he comes in. It’s late morning and it’s raining hard, making it difficult to see out the windows. She’s been there long enough to have finished one cup of tea and ordered a second, though she’s so far held off on ordering any food. She’d never presume to order for him.

He looks unsure of himself, his rapid hair loss hidden for the moment under a hat that looks oddly out of place on his head. His eyes dart about until they rest on her and she takes a sip of her drink, pretends not to notice.

She continues looking down at the newspaper she’d had the foresight to buy on the way here, her eyes darting but unseeing over the latest calamities that so horrified the Muggle world. They have no idea, she thinks to herself, remembering the stories her parents and their friends told about an evil so terrible people had been afraid to speak its very name. Muggles had no idea at all.

“May I join you?” the blond asks, even though it had been his idea to meet here. That her being there at all was because of him.

“Please,” she replies, and motions towards the chair opposite. As if it were a perfectly normal transaction. As if dining, even in such a lowly place as this, with him, was perfectly normal. As if her life weren’t spiralling out of control.

“Have you ordered yet?” he asks, picking up a menu and glancing down it, calculating prices and the best accompaniment of wine and food with all the breeding his father had instilled in him. Not that she would ever mention his father. No one does.

“Not yet,” she replies. “I was waiting for you.”

He nods. Because of course she was. It’s what she always does.

She finishes her tea and looks around at the other customers, wondering what they see when they look at her. Whether her forehead is branded by an adulterous “A” or whether she looks just like any young woman out with her (older) lover. Maybe they see the cut of his Muggle suit and the expensive ring on his finger and fit her into the “kept woman” mould. Chance would be a fine thing.

“We’ll have the set lunch, twice,” Draco tells the waitress, not even waiting for Rose to make a suggestion of her own. She’s used to it, so doesn’t even blink, though her mother taught her better. Her mother taught her a lot of things, all of which she ignores where Draco is involved. If she, or her father, could see her now.

“What’s so funny?” Draco asks and Rose realises she’s been smiling to herself.

“Nothing,” she says. “Just thinking about Mum and Dad.”

Draco’s eyes glaze over but he doesn’t say anything. War shaped the way they feel about each other, Rose knows, but she doesn’t really understand. Her mother told her once that there is talking about war and death, and there is living it. And until you’ve lived it, there is no talking in the world that will make you understand. So she stopped even trying.

She knows her parents and their friends are heroes. She looked them up in the library at Hogwarts once; found a whole shelf dedicated to them. Didn’t open one of them.

She looked up Draco’s name once too. Was too scared of what she’d find to crack open any of those books.

“I did it again, didn’t I?” Draco says, breaking into her silence. “Ordered for you.”

“It’s all right,” Rose smiles, because it is. “I know you’re just used to it.” _Because that’s what you do with her._

“Still. I should know better. I do know better.” He pauses. “I was going to give you this later, but now is as good a time as any.”

He puts a roll of parchment reverently on to the table. Rose just stares at it, uncomprehending. She doesn’t have much to do with the Old World anymore. She rather likes Muggles and Muggle things. Hogwarts wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, not for someone who realised they should have been in Slytherin and could never tell a soul.

“What is it?” she asks, when it becomes clear that Draco isn’t going to say anything.

“My divorce papers.”

Rose stares at the parchment and then at Draco. “Really?” She’d never thought this day would come. She’s stunned and elated, and more than a little worried. “You went through with it.”

“I said I would,” Draco replies. There’s steel there, behind his eyes, and Rose had almost forgotten what he could do, how he could be, so she’s glad to see it back.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just…wow.”

“So we can get married. If you’d like?” Draco’s a little shy now, his pale face colouring as she keeps on staring at him. It’s not like the first time he proposed to her. That had been romantic – with roses and chocolate, and bended knee and a diamond that probably cost more than her parent's house.

She prefers this way.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay.” She nods a little, trying to convince herself as much as she does him. This is what she wants. She’s sure of it.

There’ll be trouble, of course. Her father might disown her, though she thinks her mother will understand, and put her Dad on a short leash. Uncle Harry will help her, she thinks. He’s used to seeing the grey of life, while her Dad has never quite seen anything but Black and White, even with all he’s been through.

But she’s sure that Draco loves her. And she’s sure that she loves him. And what else is there really?

The waitress sets their food on the table and smiles. “And what else can I get you two love birds?”

“Nothing, thanks. We have everything we need,” Rose replies, reaching over the table to take Draco’s hand in her own.

And they do.


End file.
